Hi - is it normal practice for a company to tell you they are going to make you an offer but want all your reference details first ? as in managaers names - phone numbers and email addresses ?

Surely this is back to front - in the UK you secure a job - get the contract - then when signed and sealed they contact your referees - the individual probably woudnt want their manager knowing they were looking if they did not have a firm offer ?

I know I shoudnt compare UK to Doha - but is it just me or is this very strange to go about employing someone ?

If you can just let me know if this is usual practice........

Thanking you in advance.

They might want to check you out first , bear in mind if it's your first overseas posting the company will be making an investment in you , there's a fairly high failure rate with expats so they might want to go over some of your details with your referees.

There's always a chance they might not even make the call at all , it's common practice here to say something and do the opposite .
Employers and HR departments have very strange ideas on doing buisiness here and i wouldn't worry too much or read too much into it.

Good luck !

Thanks for the feedback - I will try and remain positive and give paranoia the boot.

Keep you positive thoughts for when you get here mate , you'll need the Lords strength for Qatar.......

Surely they offer you the position, then while you are on your, presumed, probationary period they could verify your references ?

I wouldn't be comfortable having my references checked unless I was already with a job offer in my hand.

I agree. This would be what I would call standard practice. Get offer letter and then provide references. If they get any bad feedback when requesting feedback I'm sure they would just pull the offer anyway..

each to there own, however both here and back in the UK, I've always taken up references prior to offering the position to someone. In-fact, it seems a bit pointless to me to take someone on-board before checking their background.

i guess it makes sense to do so if you have doubts they are who they say they are or if you are suspicious that they are exaggerating their abilities, but normally i would say that this is what the probation period is for.

of course there are exceptions and i guess if you are going to invest heavily in getting the person on board (like paying relocation costs etc) or if it is a very senior position it could make sense...

if it happened to me i wouldn't necessarily have a problem with it, but i would only give them references from previous employers (ie not the current one)...

isn't the offer normally subject to references? You can always withdraw the offer...

I've never had a problem in providing references in advance of an offer, and if I was involved in the recruitment process myself, I'd want to check out a candidate before making them an offer. IMO

I would expect to receive references before a candidate started, and I would expect to give them when in their position. Just not from the current employer. Anyway, most companies are going over to the totally non-committal: "Mr Smith was employed by us in the capacity of Senior Bogwasher from 01 Jan 2000 to 31 Dec 2010. Yours sincerely..."